Wednesday, January 02, 2013

Price and Image

Sometimes it distresses me how old a post at this blog is. That it was over three years ago that I suggested that "some arch bank" put usury between our selves and our crafts, and so little has come of that insight is hard to bear. The fact that Ezra Pound has been "on the case" for years is little consolation (see also, and also).

It occurs to me what has really happened is that the price of a thing has displaced our image of it in our assessment of its value. Thus, it no longer matters very much what a thing looks like or what we imagine we can do with it. What matters is what it will cost, and how it will depreciate. Will it gain or lose in monetary value? Not: how will it age? Craftsmanship now has only an incidental relation to the problem. There are no houses of good stone.